Choosing the location for the setting and staging for the
photography shoots has been an important aspect in my earlier
project Girls in Uniform. These choices took into account the
visual qualities of architecture and landscapes, but in the last few
years, the decisions for the site were, to a great extent, based on
the location’s history. Many of my locations/sceneries in my works
refer to heterotopia; the places and spaces that function in
non-hegemonic conditions, and that are simultaneously physical and
mental. My latest part of Girls In Uniform was a distinct
example of that.

In the project The Island I involved myself more deeply in a special
space and its meaning, its history, and especially its symbolic and
political significance. In the summer of 2008, right in the heart of
Reggio Emilia, some hundred meters from the main square, I found a
blind spot in the city. It was a badly run down house with a large
iron fence and a padlocked gate, with a sign warning people to stay
away. From outside, the house seemed abandoned. This was also the
common opinion among those who lived in the city. I was able to
enter the building and discovered that the house, which appeared to
be a Venetian palace complete with wall and ceiling murals, had to a
significant degree been turned into a ruin filled with garbage. But
the palace was not abandoned. A 60-year old man, Francesco, lives
there along with his young Cuban wife and their newborn
son. He was rumored to be a kleptomaniac, or maybe even
crazy. The house has been owned by his family for over a century,
but has deteriorated over the last 20 years. Some renovation
projects have been initiated by Francesco, the last attempt was 10
years ago, but they have all failed. In the garden, there is a crane
overgrown with grass, a cement blender, and a wheelbarrow full of
hardened cement, as if the renovation stopped suddenly over night.
In the midst of all this junk there is a cage housing a crow with
missing tail feathers. The owner saved the crow from the jaws of one
of his dogs. Francesco explained that the deterioration of the house
is his own fault, due to his inability to get rid of possessions. He
admits to being arrested by the police on several different
occasions for stealing things like doorsand large gates. Instead of
taking care of the house, he has dragged all kinds of stuff inside,
while refusing to get rid of all those things that others would
consider nothing but junk. During the interview with Francesco, it
became clear that he is not crazy at all, but actually has both
self-awareness and self-distance. After the research and staging of
the photographs in this environment, I return to the house to
continue the project between 2008 and 2010.

In this work, I make a closer investigation of the history of the
house, the family biography and the perception of the house as a
deviation from the norm. In The Island, the run down palace is used
to portray how a place can challenge a town’s structure,
architecturally and socially. I am interested in the possible
stories the house holds within itself, and how its ruin-like nature
constitute an almost archaeological site, where different sediments
of history are made clearer. I also want to describe an aspect of
collecting, where it is in a state of constant expansion, to the
point where erosion occurs and the collection deteriorates and even
decomposes. All of these aspects – the house’s location within the
city, its decay, the collapse of collecting, becoming a slave to
one’s possessions – pose a challenge to a social and political
order. I will also try to see how the house reflects specifically
Italian conditions, which make possible the existence of this
”living space” in the city center.

In this project I work with staged photography, documentary
material, interviews and video material. A book is produced with the
images and accompanying texts. Here, I collaborate with the artist
and author Magnus Bärtås and Gabriella Håkansson, whose interest
lies in biography and the psychology of collecting. The two authors
for this book where commissioned to write in their own style and
from their own artistic standpoint. One who writes an essay based on
observations and research on location (Magnus Bärtås) and the other
writing fiction based on the study of the visual material provided
and her own imagination (Gabriella Håkansson).

Involving these two
writers who have very different styles of writing, I hope to find
distinct artistic utterances and expressions that are raised in a
space in between, or in an intersection of fiction, research,
documentation and staged photography and they will create layers of
dimension in the prismatic collection. The texts are not just
illustrations, they stand as profound pieces in their own right.

..

"I would like to thank all the people who made this project possible,
including
Swedish Arts Grants Committee
and the
Municipality of Reggio Emilia
for their support."